Hard disk installation problems

[Vallerian]

I have Amiga 1200 with BlizzPPC 603e accelerator card. Recently I have
bought a hard disk, namely Western Digital, capacity 20GB, model
WD200EB-00CPF0. The problem is that I simply can not make it work !

I try to connect it as a slave on IDE cable (I have only one IDE cable
attached to Amiga IDE controller), and set it as slave. Everything works
fine at the beginning, hd tools properly recognizes the hard disk, I can
make partitions (I made each partition less than 4 GB) and format them.
BUT, when I reboot, workbench doesn`t show me icons of new partitions,
neither I can access to them via DOpus or other tools. Sometimes I can
make workbench see new hard disk after I use "Mount" tool, sometimes I
can`t.

I have tried several jumper configurations (cable select, master, even
without jumper) and nothing seems to help.

Now, I`m pretty much sure that my hard disk is okay. I have heard,
however, that western digital disks sometimes needs to be configured by
connecting the pins with jumper in _horizontal_ instead vertical
position (for example, to connect upper pin of cable select with upper
pin of master or something like that).

What I want to do is to connect this hard disk as a slave, partition and
format it, copy system files and other software applications, and then
use it as my master hard disk instead the one I use now. I have done
such operations before, but, I need to connect my new western digital
hard disk properly in order to do that ! If anyone can help me with this
one, I would be most grateful...

Thanks in advance !

[mikeymike]

Perhaps something screwed up in the initial partitioning?  If you have a PC handy, I'd recommend downloading the firmware settings editor software (if there is one) for the disk from WD's site, and check settings there, particularly caching settings.

I'm clutching at straws, but that would be my first port of call.

[doctorq]

If I was you I would set the new HD as master in the first place, and partion the device with only one partion of less than 2 GB.

Then I would install OS3.1, then OS3.9 and boingbags to get the FastFileSystem that can recognize disk above 4GB.

Partion the rest of the disk, and then connect the old HD as slave, and transfer all data.

All you need is your Workbench disk, and a CD install disk :-)